LAHORE: Effectively dealing with powerful local groups monopolising stone crushing sites for the past many decades in Sargodha, the Punjab Mines and Minerals Department has auctioned 13 such sites at a price which is 10 times more than the previous proceeds.

It has auctioned the 13 sites at Shaheenabad, Sargodha, called Pull-11, at Rs2.88 billion against the previous bid of mere Rs253 million.

The district has a total of 52 stone crushing sites whose bidding would previously give the provincial government just around Rs1 billion to 1.50 billion because of the monopoly by local groups, preventing any independent contractor from competing because of their might.

The law governing this sector also enabled these groups to foil any attempt by any other party to win a bid by offering unrealistic higher bids and then abandoning the project without paying any fine.

Mines Secretary Dr Arshad said the achievement had been made after revising the law governing mines and minerals in the province, providing protection to independent parties to enable them to compete without any fear, and overcoming litigation or the chances of it.

Upward revision of the prices of the sites also helped a lot in earning good money for the government and wriggling the sites out of the control of the local dominant groups, he said.

Department officials said 90pc of the sites in Sargodha had been under the control of a few groups. Their number now had been increased to 62 from the previous 52, and they had been categorised in three groups. No one could obtain mining rights of more than two A category sites. The leases were now for two years instead of the previous five years. Twenty five per cent of the proceeds had been collected in advance.

The department has since the beginning of the current fiscal year auctioned stone crushing and other construction material providing sites at Rs4.48 billion against the previous Rs1.72 billion.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2017